Night squall after swelter days

- Trough of low pressure triggers rain of respite and hope for weekend

A STAFF REPORTER

A thunderstorm and a light drizzle hit the city on Thursday evening, ending a scorcher of a week and bringing a smile to Calcuttans.

“Thank God it rained! It was quite unexpected and that’s why it was so nice,” said Raima Sen. “The last three-four days were excruciating. The heat was unbearable,” added the actress, on the sidelines of the premiere of her film Shabdo at Priya.

The weather office had predicted rain over the weekend but Calcuttans were not complaining at the early arrival, what with temperatures threatening to touch the 40 degrees Celsius mark earlier this week.

The rain, said the weatherman, was caused by a trough of low pressure stretching from sub-Himalayan Bengal and Sikkim to the north coast of Andhra Pradesh, across Gangetic Bengal and Odisha. More rain is likely over the next few days, he added.

Thursday’s squall did not last long. It started a little before 9pm and blew over in about 25 minutes, reaching 42.6kmph at its peak. “The squall originated in Odisha because of the trough of low pressure and then blew over Calcutta and other parts of southern Bengal,” said Gokul Chandra Debnath, director of the Regional Met office at Alipore.

During the storm, a tin structure guarding the pillars of East-West Metro’s overhead tracks on the EM Bypass near Duttabad came crashing down. A woman suffered mild injuries.

The maximum temperature, which had on Monday reached 39.6 degrees Celsius, four notches above normal, had climbed down to 37.5 degrees, one above normal, on Thursday. The forecast is for the maximum reading to be 36 degrees over the weekend.

State tennis champs Treta Bhattacharyya, Saurav Sukul and Manoj Sewa could do with some respite. “It’s been very bad. What’s worse is the humidity. We practise almost half a day and we really hope the temperature comes down,” echoed the trio at Thursday’s prize distribution function of the Merchants Cup Tennis Tournament, held in association with The Telegraph.

Good news for tennis players may be not so good news for cricket fans, who would be keeping fingers crossed that the thunderstorm spares the KKR vs Sunrisers Hyderabad match from 4pm on Sunday.